


Our Better Natures

by OnlySlightlyObsessed1



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: 1k to 5k, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySlightlyObsessed1/pseuds/OnlySlightlyObsessed1
Summary: Spock couldn't let it happen again.





	Our Better Natures

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song Go Home by Dessa. I highly recommend you listen to the song before/while reading the fic, but it should make sense without it.

They were late.

There was a buzz about the mess hall but conversation was stilted and quiet. Everyone was glancing at the doors and forcing food down as they waited, for the moment, still hopeful. There hadn’t been any news.

McCoy stared at his stew and tried to believe they were still alive.

It was late evening, well after dinner, as he sat in his office with the type on the patient chart in front of him blurring before his eyes when Christine burst in.

“Doctor they’re back!”

McCoy was up on his feet and halfway to grabbing his bag before he registered what she’d said.

“Captain Kirk and the others!”

“Oh thank the lord,” McCoy said.

“Not yet,” she replied, “broken femur in room three, they’re prepping him already.”

He desperately wanted to ask her who, who had a broken femur, who else was injured, who hadn’t made it, but that part of him, the civilian part, he thought sometimes, was quieted and pushed aside by the Army Air Force Officer who had work to do.

When the surgery was over McCoy had all but forgotten his worry. His feet hurt and he could do little more than sit slumped on a bench in the hallway next to one of the nurses, he hadn’t caught her name, sipping at his water. If Spock was dead, another five minutes of not knowing wouldn’t change anything. Another nurse appeared around the corner and went over to sit on their same bench. The two spoke in hushed voices about one of the patients, not his, who likely wouldn’t survive the night. McCoy put hands on his thighs and pushed himself to standing, muttering a farewell to the nurses.

He found himself back at his office, although he really ought to have gone to his quarters. It didn’t much matter, he needed a moment of silence, stillness, but the change in scenery had re-ignited his fears and he couldn’t bring himself to sit down, not knowing. Instead he changed, taking off his scrubs and throwing them in the pile he needed to take to the laundry, putting his coat back on over his uniform. There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The door cracked open to reveal Spock, blood down one side of his uniform, slipping into the office and shutting the door behind him. McCoy barely had time to process that he was walking under his own power, all he saw was the blood on his uniform and in less than a second he was trying to ease Spock into a chair, feeling his chest for whatever injury he had sustained, opening his mouth to ask what happened and then to call for a nurse to—

“Doctor.” Spock resisted his efforts to get him in a chair and held McCoy still in his arms. “It isn’t mine. I am well.”

His eyes were so close, warm and brown and so serious, they blinked at him and he dropped his head to Spock’s shoulder. “Fuck. Fuck, you might have told me.”

“I just did,” Spock said. McCoy could feel his voice vibrate in his chest and hear his breathing, and even after a day like this one this was unusual. They didn't do this. Jim might, he was young enough and just that sort of person, it wouldn’t seem strange to him, but Spock certainly didn't, and McCoy was well into his thirties, he had a family waiting for him back home. It didn’t stop him from shivering when Spock began to stroke his hair. “McCoy.”

He looked up and there was Spock just as close, just as warm, and his only defense was that it wasn’t him who leaned in first.

\--

Mister Scott’s home in the Northern California suburbs was well suited to the reunion. It was beautiful and had an ample yard and plenty of parking, large living and family rooms, and several guest bedrooms should anyone overindulge. He had recently married, a lovely woman named Nyota Uhura, as she had been introduced.

“She’s a fine singer,” Scotty had told them with stars in his eyes at he looked at her, “Nyota Scott doesn’t have the same music to it, does it.”

Several guests had declined invitation, but Scotty hadn’t seemed concerned with their absence.

The Doctor had not brought his wife, he explained it away with some vagueness about her dislike of long drives and their daughter at home.

It was quite dark in Scott’s front room. The single table lamp in the corner did less to illuminate the room than the occasional cars that would pass, headlights briefly washing across the interior. Spock had spent the vast majority of the evening trying and failing not to follow the Doctor about the house, made harder on the occasion he had been in conversation with McCoy and had been left jittery and anxious when McCoy excused himself to greet someone else.

But it was late now and several people had been shown either to their cars or guest rooms upstairs. Spock had finished his second glass of port hours ago and had had nothing more to drink, and now even his cigar was finished. McCoy’s cigarette left in an ashtray. They sat across from each other and Spock was grateful for the darkness because it hid the details of his own expression, and obscured the way McCoy’s soft blue cardigan matched his eyes.

Jim had been missing for hours, so Spock presumed he had either found himself someone to talk to in a dark corner or gone home, but his absence left him and McCoy alone, with something dull and painful in Spock’s stomach as he listened to McCoy talk.

“—so I suppose they’ll sort it out someway or another.” McCoy met his eye and flashed a smile, after a second softly asking, “And how have you been, Spock?”

“Quite well,” he replied.

In the ensuing silence McCoy’s smile became more thoughtful and focused. _Don’t ask_. Spock prayed silently. _Don’t ask._

“I’d have thought you’d’ve gotten married by now,” McCoy said, and technically, he had not asked.

“Not everything happens as we might expect.”

“Still. A smart, handsome, war hero like you . . .” he trailed off.

McCoy had always been this way, full of soft teasing affection, especially late at night when he was in a good mood, but Spock could not let it continue, for his own sanity.

“Careful, Doctor.”

“What’s a little flattery between friends?” McCoy’s smile had grown again.

“I know what friendship is,” it felt nothing like what was between them now, “be sure you mean it.”

Silence fell for a moment, and McCoy stood and walked to the window, and as much as Spock wished otherwise, he could not resist the impulse to stand and follow him. He leaned on the window frame with his hands in his pockets, flushing as McCoy patted him on the shoulder once, thumb rubbing a circle before he lifted his hand and checked his watch.

It must be late, Spock knew, they had been there for hours and the look in McCoy’s eyes confirmed it. His hand came up again and Spock caught it in his own before it could come to rest anywhere more dangerous.

“Spock—”

“Doctor. The war is over, we are back to our real lives. I don’t pretend it’s easy,” he was whispering, “but it’s far too late now.”

McCoy stepped closer to him, and for a man who was so difficult to intimidate, he seemed particularly vulnerable in that moment and Spock could never have lived with himself for taking advantage of that when McCoy had a life to return to.

“Spock don’t kid yourself.”

Spock’s breathing was shaky when he said, “Let it pass. We ought to say our goodbyes.”

McCoy just stood there, hand closed gently with Spock's, and then the headlights of a car flooded the room and Spock could hardly breathe, but they disappeared just as quickly. “Go home to your wife, McCoy.”

“She’s not at home,” McCoy said. Spock didn’t want to know what he meant by that.

“In that case, I have always known her husband to be an exceptionally honest man. Do not make me take it back.”

Finally, McCoy stepped away from him, breaking their hold on each other, leaving Spock relieved and yet strangely numb.

“I’ll see you again soon, Spock. Don’t be a stranger.”

“Of course. Good night, Doctor.”

He watched for several seconds as McCoy eased the door shut behind him, then sank back into the couch he had previously vacated, alone.


End file.
